40 Years of Drug War

I remember when I was in high school getting alcohol was a real chore. Since high quality fake ID’s were difficult to source and using someone else’s ID could fail under close scrutiny, you’d have to find an adult willing to buy for you. Usually it would be a friend’s sibling or older family member.

Buying illicit drugs was always easy, though. A high school student could get bud, ecstasy, acid, and more through a simple phone call. Drug dealers don’t check ID’s and will sell to anyone who isn’t a cop.

40 years ago (to the day), Nixon initiated the War on Drugs by declaring “illicit drugs the number one public enemy”. Hindsight is always 20/20, but expecting humans to end a tradition of thousands of years of taking drugs for recreational, medicinal, and spiritual reasons is plain crazy. For a while (decades), the establishment plugged it’s ears and ignored the side-effects, which grew to be more dangerous and difficult to manage than the perceived ill.

And finally, it seems that we could be near the tipping point.

The point where the government doesn’t get between doctors and patients, or consenting adults and substances which don’t affect anyone else. If someone wants to do heroin, I say the government shouldn’t stand in their way. We’re surrounded by evidence that the government and it’s never-ending bureaucratic departments of moral policing are ineffectual babysitters.

Here’s a solid NYT article on the issue describing the coalition that stands on the horizon to change the future of international drug policy.